| DIY People: Hand-Dyed Quilt Fabric |
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"I studied art and have always had a strong sense of color, and providing quilters with a colorful range of fabrics intrigued me," Stacy Michell says. "Hand-dyed fabrics lend themselves nicely to quilting because you can write your own color recipes and get a range of colors that you can't get from over-the-counter fabrics."
If you're interested in dyeing fabric, Stacy advises that you'll need white cotton that is specifically prepared for dyeing fabric. "That means that it has no starch on it, no perma-fresh finish on it and it's of a neutral pH." You'll also need a dye kit, cups, containers, rubber gloves, non-iodized salt and soda ash (which often comes with the dye kit), a blender, measuring utensils, and an apron because it's a messy job." Stacy recommends using Procion dye. "They're a cold water, fabric reactive dye and come in a powder form. In a blender you mix about a gallon of water, three quarters cup of non-iodized salt, a quarter of a cup of soda ash, which is the pH activator." Stacy points out that it's best to use soft water. "Then take the blended gallon of water and pour it into about 20 plastic cups (figure A). Fill the cups about 3/4 of the way to the top. To those cups you will add two tablespoons of dye (figure B) and your piece of fabric." When mixing the dye stock, Stacy used 10-gram jars of dye, which is about 1/3rd of an ounce. She mixes it with 16 ounces of water to make the dye stock solution. Stacy recycles empty drinking water bottles to hold the dye stock solution. She drills a hole in the top of the water bottle in order to measure out the dye. In her demonstration, Stacy used three colors (red, blue and yellow) and her recipe made 15 different colors. In a two-ounce measuring cup she mixed the colors based on her recipes. She combined red and yellow, yellow and blue and red and blue. The percentage of each color was 99 percent to 1 percent, 75 percent to 25 percent, 50 percent to 50 percent, 25 percent to 75 percent and 1 percent to 99 percent. She poured each one of those mixtures into one of the plastic cups containing the water mixture. "Do not stir the dye mix up when you place it into the water," she says. "Stirring makes for too much distribution of the dye which you don't want, because you're looking for modeled and unusual effects when dyeing fabric." Stacy then cuts 24" by 31" sections of cloth with a wave cutter. "Use a wave cutter so that the fabric doesn't become raveled and knotted in the wash process after dyeing," she advises. She randomly bunches up the fabric and places it into the cups with the dye, where it will sit overnight. "The material is folded inconsistently and not wadded which helps give the desirable molded texture." After dyeing, all the fabric must be rinsed and washed in Synthropol (which will be supplied in the dye kit) and then washed again in a regular wash cycle. "I like work that has a process, a method and a routine," Stacy remarks. "But one that still has room for improvement. Every time you make it, you do a little bit better."
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